Author: Cookies

Today we did some reef diving, hiking and painting while anchored at man o war in the Bahamas.

Today we took the dingy out to the reef just east of man o war cay and also snorkeling right from the boat at our anchorage on the west side of the island is a very protected cove.

We spent the night at great guana cay to get fuel.

We took the dingy to a reef on the Atlantic side where we could find excellent reef snorkeling adventures. We took the 5 of us in the dingy. Some went spear fishing while others snorkeling.

There is a specific way one exists the northern abacos island chain to get toward marsh harbor thru this difficult passage called the whale. It can be very dangerous due to strong currents and high Atlantic seas in this narrow area. We carefully planned to come thru this passage at rising tide and low Atlantic swell.

We were able to meet several sailor’s also anchored at manjack cay. One night we had a group of 9 for dinner and music on our boat. Everyone would dingy over and tie to our boat and come aboard.

We explored the very north end of the island finding more empty beaches. We collected more jetsom for our art trail contribution too.

Manjack cay is filled with sailors and residents of the island and we continually see each other and socialize and help each harvest our conch and share snorkeling spots and travel adventures.

The island has a long established art trail that cruisers have made from jetsom into art. We have decided to add to the collection of other pieces by collecting art parts and crafting a contribution.

Today was another full day at this anchorage next to Manjack cay. We did a longer island hike in the morning and met up with one island land owner and some other sailors. We collected and harvested some coconuts. Later in the afternoon another sailor invited us to go conch diving and we found 2 conch. He helped to show how to extract the conch from the beautiful shell. A Bahamian was there who showed us how to open a conch too. In the evening with were invited to hang with the island owner and 3-4 other sailors for drinks and music at their house.

Today we spent a full day hiking the beaches and snorkeling the reefs at Manjack cay.

Today was Alicia’s birthday so had a full day of activities of hiking, snorkeling, swimming, kayaking. We shared some birthday brownies we made last night with some other cruisers.

We sailed 41 miles today to manjack cay. This island should provide the needed west to north wind protection and has wonderful beaches and areas to explore.

We spent 3 days in this protected harbor to avoid weather on Thursday. Here are some photos of the town.

Yesterday we left grand cay and sailed about 20 km to yankee cay. We found a good anchorage. At about 2 am the wind clocked more westerly creating a lot of rolling so we left at 7 once sun was rising.

Our second night stay was at grand key. We were able to anchor in the town area harbor. We have been here a few days to wait out a wind storm that happened last night with high winds and heavy rains and lighting for a few hours.

We had an exciting adventure late one afternoon when a larger freight vessel that left a dock right behind us needed to exit the narrow harbor. This large delivery ship lost one whole motor of two so it couldn’t steer. We had to quickly release our anchor chain to get out if it’s way as it spun in various circles trying to exit the harbor around several sailboats anchored. It hit the boat next to us and nearly grounded next as local boats scrambled over with power boats to push it away from going aground. The big boat just spun and went backwards for the next 1/2 mile before it finally set an anchor to stop as a place to be repaired. Later that night a heavy 30 knot wind and lightning storm forced the same sailboat that was hit by the delivery ship to have their anchor drag placing them within feet of the coral. They tried 3 times to reset the anchor at 2 am in a rain and wind storm. They decided to tie up at the docks after the anchor wouldn’t set.

We got the outboard serviced and was able to motor to a beach at the end of the island.

We arrived yesterday from the crossing and stayed at mangrove key for the night. We then sailed to grand key across little Bahamas bank. we switched to a new mapping and navigation system that works better in the Bahamas called aqua maps.

Here is the new navigation app interface we use to navigate and find anchorage’s etc.

Yesterday and this morning we sailed from Rodriguez key to west end in the north end of the Bahamas. This took 22 hours and covered 145 miles and hit boat speeds of 9.7 knots with 22 knot winds and 3 knots currents to bring our over the ground speeds to almost 10.

Weeks of planning and analysis of weather and routes took place before we did the final one night crossing. Below is the general route

We sailed all night and had to resort to hand steering as the autopilot would not handle the shifting winds. We traded off steering all night. We were able to sailing adding the 3 knot current and our 6-7 knot boat speed

Arrived in west end at 11:30 am Monday

We checked in and continued sailing 20 miles to a mangrove key.

Yesterday we sailed 34 nm to Rodriguez on the Atlantic side. Winds were blowing 15-25. The water was an amazing turquoise color. We had to repair the broken mainsail clew which we did by drilling holes into the sail reinforcement material in the sail and strap on new lives ti connect to outhaul block.

Today we pulled up the dock lines at banana bay marina and headed north on the gulf side toward fiesta key where we anchored. About 29 miles and 5 hours.

Today we biked to Sombrero beach to snorkel. We then biked to pigeon key for more biking. In the afternoon we biked to key colony for a concert. At sunset we did a kayak on the very calm Gulf of Mexico. The weather completely changed from only a day ago having tornado warnings and high winds and 3 inches of rain.

We are mostly set with the boat and logistics to allow the sailing adventure to start. In the meantime we are enjoying time with some kayaking and a dinner with other marina friends. Severe thunderstorms roll thru at times with tornado watches and lots of rain.